The world is becoming increasingly tokenized.

Similar to how Marc Andreessen described the way in which software was eating the world in 2011, tokenization has led to the emergence of a whole new industry and era of technology and entrepreneurship known as web3.

Despite the headlines and market conditions today in August of 2022, the web3 ecosystem has seen unprecedented growth over the last 13 years, growing at a 270% CAGR.

Over the past two years, we have seen a 220x growth in the NFT market alone.

This growth has brought enormous opportunity, creativity, and innovation over the past 12–18 months, while also catapulting NFTs into the mainstream media and pop culture.

At the same time, it’s brought about a new class of challenges.

I personally have been in crypto for many years but started going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of web3 and NFTs in early 2021. I loved the creativity, community, and openness that existed in web3. Every day I was learning something new and just trying to be a sponge. It felt (and still feels) like the early days of social media as a marketing channel.

The deeper I was going into the space — joining communities, participating in DAOs, and buying NFT projects — the more I realized that web3 businesses are struggling with the same problems as every other business. They struggle to connect with their customers in meaningful ways to drive long-term relationships. These businesses, though, lack the tools to effectively do that.

The tokenized nature of these businesses and products has brought about a paradigm shift in how companies do business, how they market, and how their customer data is structured, which has created many new challenges. Challenges that need to be addressed in a new, web3-native way.

As Tom Tunguz put it in a post earlier this year:

A tighter fundraising market and competition will catalyze web3 marketers to adopt a new discipline. Why? Marketing efficiency is a vital competitive advantage.

While this is just as true in web2 as in web3, crypto brings new complexities that create opportunity…

Those fundamental changes create opportunity for marketing startups to serve web3 marketers better.

The more and more I talked to NFT projects about this problem and opportunity, the more I became convinced that the web3 world needed its own marketing tech stack. And the more I fell in love with these customers, this industry, and this business idea.

So after spending seven years of my career in my dream job leading marketing and starting new companies at High Alpha, I decided to take the plunge and start my own company to build the first CRM and marketing automation platform for web3.

I’m incredibly proud to introduce to the world Holder: the platform to power customer data for this tokenized world. Our mission is to help web3 companies and communities build more durable and sustainable businesses.

The web3 marketing stack is just now taking shape for marketers and community leaders to better understand their audiences, segment their users, and engage with their customers in a more personalized and effective way.

We believe Holder can lead the way for this emerging crypto martech industry.

We are making incredible strides and have already brought on 30+ Design Partners to our private beta who are helping build and collaborate alongside us.

If you’re interested in learning how Holder can help your project or business or want to get early access, join our waitlist at holder.xyz.

We’re also hiring ambitious, curious individuals to come and build the future of web3 software with us. If this vision excites you, check out our openings here.

This post originally appeared on Medium in June of 2022.

The world is becoming increasingly tokenized.

Similar to how Marc Andreessen described the way in which software was eating the world in 2011, tokenization has led to the emergence of a whole new industry and era of technology and entrepreneurship known as web3.

Despite the headlines and market conditions today in August of 2022, the web3 ecosystem has seen unprecedented growth over the last 13 years, growing at a 270% CAGR.

Over the past two years, we have seen a 220x growth in the NFT market alone.

This growth has brought enormous opportunity, creativity, and innovation over the past 12–18 months, while also catapulting NFTs into the mainstream media and pop culture.

At the same time, it’s brought about a new class of challenges.

I personally have been in crypto for many years but started going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of web3 and NFTs in early 2021. I loved the creativity, community, and openness that existed in web3. Every day I was learning something new and just trying to be a sponge. It felt (and still feels) like the early days of social media as a marketing channel.

The deeper I was going into the space — joining communities, participating in DAOs, and buying NFT projects — the more I realized that web3 businesses are struggling with the same problems as every other business. They struggle to connect with their customers in meaningful ways to drive long-term relationships. These businesses, though, lack the tools to effectively do that.

The tokenized nature of these businesses and products has brought about a paradigm shift in how companies do business, how they market, and how their customer data is structured, which has created many new challenges. Challenges that need to be addressed in a new, web3-native way.

As Tom Tunguz put it in a post earlier this year:

A tighter fundraising market and competition will catalyze web3 marketers to adopt a new discipline. Why? Marketing efficiency is a vital competitive advantage.

While this is just as true in web2 as in web3, crypto brings new complexities that create opportunity…

Those fundamental changes create opportunity for marketing startups to serve web3 marketers better.

The more and more I talked to NFT projects about this problem and opportunity, the more I became convinced that the web3 world needed its own marketing tech stack. And the more I fell in love with these customers, this industry, and this business idea.

So after spending seven years of my career in my dream job leading marketing and starting new companies at High Alpha, I decided to take the plunge and start my own company to build the first CRM and marketing automation platform for web3.

I’m incredibly proud to introduce to the world Holder: the platform to power customer data for this tokenized world. Our mission is to help web3 companies and communities build more durable and sustainable businesses.

The web3 marketing stack is just now taking shape for marketers and community leaders to better understand their audiences, segment their users, and engage with their customers in a more personalized and effective way.

We believe Holder can lead the way for this emerging crypto martech industry.

We are making incredible strides and have already brought on 30+ Design Partners to our private beta who are helping build and collaborate alongside us.

If you’re interested in learning how Holder can help your project or business or want to get early access, join our waitlist at holder.xyz.

We’re also hiring ambitious, curious individuals to come and build the future of web3 software with us. If this vision excites you, check out our openings here.

This post originally appeared on Medium in June of 2022.